Monday, August 15, 2016

Conspiracy Theorists and First Century Christians

The mindset of conspiracy theorists, who are thoroughly convinced their rulers are corrupt, is actually very close to that of first-century Christians, also thoroughly convinced their Roman rulers were corrupt. Even if conspiracy theorists are wrong about the details, their mindset is right. Rulers are corrupt. Don’t obey them. Decide for yourself what it true and right.

Rulers never rule for the benefit of their subjects. They seek power for the sake of power.

Rulers elevate themselves to idols. They insist the currency they dispense must define your values.

First century Christians were fed to the lions because they defied Caesar and stood up for what is true and right. They put genuine human virtues above the virtue of obedience.

Obedience is only a virtue when we obey virtuous rulers. Those in power are those who choose to seek power. They are corrupt. They will always be corrupt. First century Christians and conspiracy theorists understand. Everyone else deceives themselves.

The word cynical has two very different meanings. There is the good, plebeian sense of cynicism, always looking power in the face and seeing what it really is. And there is the evil, bourgeois sense of cynicism, which cynically manipulates the mind into pretending rulers are good.

Rulers are evil. They seek power for the sake of power. The good are powerless. We die on crosses.

This is not cynicism. It is fact. Cynicism is the choice to ignore this fact and obey anyway.

Don’t ignore the evil in your rulers. Ignore your rulers. Defy your rulers. Define your own values. Each of us has our own relationship to virtue and wisdom. No ruler can ever be admitted to that place where ultimate moral decisions are made. There, in the core of the heart, we are always alone.

Jesus was asked if it was righteous to pay taxes. He asked to see the coins in which the taxes would be paid. “Whose image is on the coin?” he asked.

Caesar’s face is on the coin. Caesar's empire is what gives the coin its value. Who decided, to begin with, that Gold—not Nickel or Copper—would be the metal that served as the store of value? Who, for that matter, decided that something tangible would define economic value?

Who decided economic life would serve Caesar and the metal he appointed as his deputy?

At this point the value of gold seems so firmly stamped on our hearts, it is hard to question. But in the first century, it was a real question. Why are we accepting that these coins are stores of value? Why aren’t our values defined by our own, higher values?

Love of God, love of neighbor, love of truth, love of virtue, love of wisdom—these qualities are hard to identify. It’s much easier to just exchange coins.

But is it really so much easier? As we destroy our planet in a suicidal spiral of consumption, perhaps now would be a good time to ask, might the first century Christians perhaps have had the right idea, when they ignored Caesar, gave him back his coins, and braved the lions and crosses for the sake of what they held most sacred?

Remember, Paul said, “The rulers of this world are coming to nothing.” Why would you want to go down with the establishment?

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